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HE Cleveland Association of Oberlin Alumni invited the American Missionary Association, on the 
occasion of its annual meeting in Cleveland, October 20-22, 1891, to visit Oberlin. This invitation was 
most heartily responded to by the Association. The special train provided by the Cleveland Alumni left 
the city at 8:45 A. M., Friday, October 23. Upon its arrival at Oberlin, the visitors proceeded to the 
College Chapel to join with the faculty and students in listening to the following exercises. 



©rcjer of? Q^erci^>c/i> af ffte Goffecje d>fiaraef. 

11 A. M. 

Hymn Congregation. Music — Remember thy Creator Rhode. 

Prayer. . College Glee Club. 

Introduction of Guests . . Gen. M. D. Leggett. 

Address President Fairchild. 

Response President Baulantine. 

„.,_ _ _ - . T ■ t Address .... Rev. Wm. Hayes Ward, D. D., 

Music— O salutaris Liszt. „,. ' ' 

Editor N. Y. Independent. 
Ladies' Voices. 

„„«.,. , .. . ... Hymn Congregation. 

Address — Oberlin and the American Missionary 

Association .... Rev. M. K. Strieby, D. D. Benediction. 



After the exercises the visitors inspected the buildings, and at 1 P. M. they were the guests of the College for 
lunch at Talcott Hall. At 2 P. M. a reception was given by the faculty and officers of the College, and at 4 P. M. 
the train returned to the city. 



OBERLIN 



AND THE 



American Missionary Association. 

REV. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D., Secretary of the A. M. A. 



An Address delivered in the College Chapel, Oberlin, on the occasion of the visit of the A. M. A.] 




BERLIN and the American Missionary 
Association are brothers. There is a 
difference of thirteen years in their 
ages, and the younger comes to-day to greet 
the elder with grateful remembrances of the 
past, with rejoicing in successes attained and 
with assurances of continued sympathy. 

The liberal and progressive spirit of Oberlin 
encouraged peculiar people to come hither to 
propagate their views. If any such man had 
" a psalm, a doctrine, a revelation or an inter- 



pretation " he had no rest in his bones until he 
secured a hearing in Oberlin. Perhaps Oberlin 
spent a little too much time with some of these 
people, for while some of them had a special 
gift for " reproof," they were not all profitable 
for " instruction in righteousness." But a few 
of these intruders did bring in something 
vastly important, and among these none was 
more so than what was at the time the most 
unpopular — the anti-slavery discussion. The 
fathers — Shipherd and Stewart — had, at the 



— 1 — 



outset, no thought of it, and the famous " Ober- 
lin Covenant" was silent about it. When 
Father Shipherd was moved by the spirit to go 
to Cincinnati, and there caught the infection 
from the agitation in Lane Seminary, and after- 
wards from conferences in New York with Mr. 
Finney and the Tappans, and wrote to the 
Trustees in Oberlin urging them to pass a vote 
to admit students irrespective of color, what a 
•commotion it created ! Some of the young 
ladies, who were students from New England, 
said that if colored people were admitted they 
would go home at once, if they had to wade 
Lake Erie to get there. But the vote was' 
passed. Blessings on the memory of Father 
Keep, who carried it by giving the casting vote 
as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Little 
didst thou know, John Keep, how far-reaching 
this matter was, for after all discussions, moral 
and political, and all the bloodshed of the war, 
this word " irrespective of color " is still the piv- 
otal pointin one of the live questions of the day. 



Oberlin soon swung fully into line. The com- 
ing of Finney, Mahan, Morgan and the Lane 
Seminary boys, and the stirring eloquence of 
Theodore D. Weld settled the matter ; and 
through evil report and good report, through 
mobs, imprisonment and the sending of volun- 
teers to the army, Oberlin was faithful to the 
colored man. 

The time came that Christian men who loved 
the cause of missions felt themselves troubled 
in conscience about giving money to Mission 
Boards that, in spite of all entreaty and remon- 
strance, continued to sustain slave-holding 
churches. Oberlin was in the front rank of 
those who began missionary efforts free from 
such complications. It was an Oberlin student 
— Hiram Wilson— who led the way in missions 
among the fugitive slaves in Canada. It was 
an Oberlin student— David S. Ingrahain — who 
went on an independent self-supporting mis- 
sion to the emancipated slaves in the West 
Indies, to be followed ere long by many other 

2 — 



Oberlin students. It was Oberlin's ready re- 
sponse that in 1841 sent two of its students as 
missionaries with the Amistad captives to their 
home in Africa ; and it was from Oberlin in 
after years that noble men and women toiled 
and died in that deadly climate. It was largely 
an Oberlin movement that organized the 
" Western Evangelical Missionary Society " in 
1843, under whose auspices a score of Oberlin 
students went on the self-denying mission 
among the Ojibway Indians. 

All these movements preceded and led up to 
the formation of the American Missionary 
Association, and, when it was formed, Oberlin 
was its firmest and best friend. 

The first need of the Association after its 
organization was a competent Secretary. It 
came to Oberlin and Oberlin furnished the 
man — yes, a man, every inch of him — eminently 
prudent and judicious, with business training 
and administrative gifts, and to crown all, a 
man of the soundest integrity and Christian 



character. He came to his post three months 
after the society was formed, held it for nearly 
thirty years, and died in the harness. Here is 
a fitting place and this is a fitting time to bear 
this tribute to the memory of that first Secre- 
tary, George Whipple. 

The Association having obtained its com- 
manding officer, the next thing to do was to 
secure the " sinews of war," and then to enlist 
the soldiers. Both these it acquired to some ex- 
tent by receiving the assets and the mission- 
aries of the societies which had been merged 
into it. But much more — increasingly much 
more — was needed of both. 

The people of Oberlin were not rich, but an 
Apostle has well described them : " Their deep 
poverty abounded unto the riches of their lib- 
erality," and, more than that, they " first gave 
their own selves to the Lord," and then to 
mission service. In other words, they gave 
both men and money. 

As to the monev : Our books show that 



Oberlin has given the Association $36,270 in 
direct contributions. The Master once sat over 
against the treasury and beheld how the people 
cast in their money; and seeing one person put 
in a certain sum, he at once placed an astonish- 
ingly high estimate upon it. He has watched 
these Oberlin collections, and I imagine that 
he has estimated them — especially those given 
in the earlier days — at a much higher figure 
than I have named. Besides all this, I may 
fairly assume that the 25,000 students that have 
gone forth from Oberlin have generally been 
contributors to the Association, and that the 
more than 400 Oberlin men that have become 
pastors have led their churches to take collec- 
tions for it. Putting these together with Ober- 
lin's direct contributions, I think that Oberlin 
and Oberlin students have given to the Associ- 
ation — in the current coin of the realm — about 
$100,000. 

As to the furnishing of workers : Oberlin 
was rapidly drilling soldiers for the Lord's 



service, but they were not invited into the ranks 
of the army corps then in the field. The large 
churches did not call for them as pastors, and 
the great Missionary Boards sent no recruiting 
sergeants here. This was strange. These 
soldiers were of full military stature, in body, 
mind and heart. They were well drilled, well 
equipped and ready for action. Nobody 
doubted their courage or their loyalty to the 
Master. But still they were not wanted. The 
reason was not then far to seek. These men 
were tinctured with the suspicion of abolition- 
ism. They actually believed in the Declaration 
of Independence and in the New Testament 
doctrine, that in Christ Jesus all are one, and 
they put this into practice, for students were 
admitted " irrespective of color." Moreover 
the)- were charged with heresy — in that they 
were new school and not old school men, and 
that on one point they were more Methodistic 
than Calvinistic. 

Now, while the rich churches and the great 



Mission Boards had no nse for these men, they I 
were, by their anti-slavery zeal, just the soldiers 
that the Association wanted, and here for the 
first time it could make some return for all the 
favors it had received from Oberlin. It brought 
the men and women into the ranks. It is a 
fair estimate, I think, to say, that for the first 
sixteen years of the life of the Association, or 
up to i860, nine-tenths of all its workers, at 
home and abroad, were Oberlin students ; and 
their service was no parade drill. In the home 
field they went, as a rule, where the work was 
the hardest and the pay the poorest. Such 
was the prejudice against them that often 
the most they could look for was the privilege 
of working in some need}- field without 
molestation. They found no Home Mis- 
sionary Society to recommend or to aid 
them. But Oberlin has won its victor}', and 
most courteously was it acknowledged in the 
National Council which met here in 1871, , 
when its moderator, Dr. Budington, said: "We I 



stand here on the grave of buried prejudices." 
In the foreign field they endured hardness as 
good soldiers of Christ, and some of them died 
on the battle-field. Some, broken in health, 
returned and are still with us. We honor those 
that are here, while angels watch over the graves 
of those that have died. 

In 1861 a new world came up. The old strug- 
gle with slaver\- took on the dreadful aspect of 
war. But the beginnings were then made of 
the great end. The slaves began to come forth 
from their prison house, and at length it could 
be said, " A slave can not breathe in America." 
The Association was prepared for this new work 
and entered upon it as the sequel of the first — 
a work whose importance can not be overstated 
and whose end is yet afar off. Here, again, 
Oberlin stood by its side and gave it help. 
There was not now a call upon Oberlin for its 
exclusive assistance. The taint of abolitionism 
was gone, and everywhere in the North, East 
and West, there were willing hands and conse- 



crated hearts ready to enter this new service. 
But Oberlin did her full share. 

In this new and expanded work, the Associ- 
ation needed another Secretary, and Oberlin 
again supplied the man. Of him it suffices to 
say that he is alive and remains unto this pres- 
ent. It also furnished the first Field Secretary 
through whose untiring efforts the foundations 
were laid for some of the best work done in 
the South. In nearly all the larger institutions 
founded or sustained by the Association, such 
as Berea, Fisk, Atlanta, Talladega, Tougaloo. 
Straight and Howard, Oberlin students have- 
been useful and, in many cases, prominent 
workers ; and, speaking in a general way, we 
have had no more valuable teachers and preach- 
ers than those that have come to us from 
Oberlin. 

Thus in all these years and ways, Oberlin and 
the Association have stood shoulder to 
shoulder in the struggle for the slave, and in 
lifting up the Freedmen. But we know that 



these people are still borne down by ignorance 
and vice and are crushed under the weight of 
race prejudice. They must not be abandoned, 
and may I not here and now pledge for Oberlin 
and the Association that they will stand by them 
till the rights of all men in this laud shall be 
recognized, irrespective of color ? 

We who represent the Association to-day 
come with gratitude to God for all He has done 
for us and with thankfulness to Oberlin for the 
help it has rendered in the years past, and 
especially in the days of weakness and danger. 
But we come still more to congratulate Oberlin 
upon its great success, upon the enlargements 
already reached and upon the prospects that 
open out so bright before it. 

I may speak of the contrast of the present 
with the earlier times. I remember Slab Hall, 
Walton Hall, Colonial Hall, and, what in those 
days was our pride, Tappan Hall. We are 
soon to walk about this Zion, and to consider 
well her palaces, and none who do not remein- 



— 6 



ber the early days can fully appreciate the con- 
trast made by the twelve buildings now on the 
ground — the Chapel, Council Hall, Cabinet, 
French and Society Halls, Stewart Hall and 
Sturges Hall, and then those more extensive, 
Peters Hall, the Spear Library, Talcott Hall, 
Baldwin Cottage, and last but not least, the 
grand Music Hall, the gift of our honored 
brother, Dr. Warner. 

I remember the men who, in all these years, 
have been the leaders in this grand enterprise 
— Pres. Mahan, Pres. Finney, Prof. Morgan, 
Prof. Cowles, Dr. Dascomb — but I get lost in 
the multitude of these noble names. Yet I 
must not be hindered from referring to one 
other, Pres. Fairchild — student, tutor and pro- 
fessor, teaching in almost every study in every 
department, and crowning all with a Presi- 
dency so wisely administered as to lead up, in 
a large measure, to the present success of the 
college. I count it my greatest college honor 
that I was the classmate of James H. Fairchild. 



I call to mind the early days of poverty, 
when the prayer, " Give us this day our daily 
bread," meant something very literal, for often- 
times we knew not where the next barrel of 
flour was to come from. But now, with a vastly 
enlarged corps of teachers and greatly in- 
creased expenses, we have something a little 
ahead from day to day. We have the nucleus of 
an endowment, and I may tell j^ou a little secret 
that the alumni and former students have a 
plan in hand to aid in meeting current ex- 
penses for five years, by which time it is hoped 
that an endowment will be secured. 

I can look back to the days of ostracism 
and reproach, of which I have spoken, when 
Oberlin was branded as fanatic and heretic — 
when the churches and the great Mission 
Boards rejected the ministry of her students. 
But now I can rejoice with you that what was 
once a reproach is a glory. The churches seek 
pastors from Oberlin, and our grand Mission 
Boards, which once looked at us " through a 



glass darkly," now meet us face to face, and 
not only welcome our students to mission 
fields, but come hither for Secretaries and cor- 
porate members. And strangest of all the 
changes is that the Oberlin, once esteemed as 
heretical, is now held to be the champion of 
orthodoxy. 

Oberlin has overcome its early difficulties 
and has seated itself in fine buildings, but it 
must not rest in the past or present. It must 
not, like Goldsmith's old soldier, " Shoulder 
the crutch and show how fields were won." 
The word is still : Onward — more apparatus,- 



more teachers, more buildings, more endow- 
ment. 

Nor is this all. There lies before it the final 
victory over race prejudice, the grapple with 
the great problems of labor, capital, crime and 
home evangelization and the spread of the 
Gospel over the world. 

And, last of all, in the realm of Biblical 
truth, Oberliu's strength is not to sit still, but 
with unfailing and reverent trust in God, it 
must strike out in all fields of research and 
stop only when earth's twilight shall give place 
to the light and glory. 



— 8 



NAMES OF OBERLIN STUDENTS 

Who were Missionaries of the American Missionary Association before 1861 



INDIAN MISSIONS. 



Rev. S. G. Wright and Mrs. Wright before 1846 

Rev. Alonzo Barnard and Mrs. Barnard . " 1846 
Rev. J. P. Bardwell and Mrs. Bardwell . . " 1846 
William Lewis, M. D., and Mrs. Lewis . . " 1846 
Mr. 0. A. Coe and Mrs. Coe " 1846 



Mr. D. B. Spencer and Mrs. Spencer . . . before 1846 

Mr. Joseph S. Fisher and Mrs. Fisher 1849 

Mr. Francis Spees and Mrs. Spees 1850 

Rev. George N. Smith i860 

Rev. A. B. Adams from 1843 to l8 5° 



MENDI MISSION 



Rev. William Raymond before 1846 

Rev. George Thompson and Mrs. Thompson . . 1848 

Mr. Anson J. Carter 1848 

Sarah Kinson, native African 1848 

Miss Mahala McGuire 1852 

Miss Jane Winters 1852 



Mr. Matthew Mair and Mrs. Mair 1857 

Rev. F. S. Arnold and Mrs. Arnold 1850 

Rev. J. C. Tefft and Mrs. Tefft 1850 

Mr. Samuel Gray 1850 

Mr. Richard Miles and Mrs. Miles i860 



JAMAICA MISSIONS. 



Rev. David C. Ingraham and Mrs. Ingraham 

before 1846 

Rev. W, H. Evarts and Mrs. Evarts ... " 1846 
Rev. Lorin Thompson and Mrs. Thompson " 1846 
Rev. S. T. Wolcott and Mrs. Wolcott . . " 1846 
Rev. C. S. Renshaw and Mrs. Renshaw . " 1846 
Rev. Ralph Tyler and Mrs. Tyler .... " 1846 
Rev. George L. Hovey and Mrs. Hovey . . " 1846 
Rev. Julius O. Beardslee & Mrs. Beardslee " 1846 
Rev. James A. Preston and Mrs. Preston . " 1846 
Rev. A. D. Olds and Mrs. Olds 1849 



Rev. Heman B. Hall and Mrs. Hall 1850 

Rev. A. M. Richardson and Mrs. Richardson . . 185 1 

Rev. Amos B. Hills and Mrs. Hills 1853 

Rev. C. C. Starbuck 1855 

Mr. Thaddeus Hoppin and Mrs. Hoppin .... 1856 

Miss Lucy Woodcock 1856 

Rev. T. B. Penfield and Mrs. Sarah Ingraham 

Penfield 185S 

Miss Sarah Treat and Miss Julia Treat . 1859 and 1861 

Mr. Joseph S. Fisher and Mrs. Fisher i860 



SIAM MISSION. 

Mrs. Sarah B. Bradley 1849 I Rev. L. B. Lane and Mrs. Lane 1850 



Rev. David Wirt . . . 


. 1849 


Rev. J. H. Byrd 


. 1848 


Rev. W. W. Blanchard . . 


• 1850 


Rev. Lewis Bridgman . . 


• 1850 


Rev. Warren Cochran . . 


• 1850 



HOME MISSIONS. 

Rev. Nelson Cook 1850 

Rev. Benjamin Foltz .... 1850 

Rev. Calvin Steele 1850 

Rev. Daniel Chapman .... 1851 
Rev. S. L. Adair 1852 



Rev. Henry Bates 1852 

Rev. Lucius Parker 1852 

Rev. Lucius Smith 1852 

Rev. James Steele 1852 

Rev. B. M. Amsden 1853 



10- 



HOME MISSIONS- Continued. 



Rev. George Clark . . 
Rev. William Dewey • 
Rev. David Jones . . 
Rev. M. M. Longley . . 
Rev. Samuel Penfield . 
Rev. S. H. Thompson . 
Rev. John Todd .... 
Rev. Willard Burr . . . 
Rev. U. T. Chamberlain 
Rev. W. R. Clemons . . 
Rev. S. D. Helms . . . 
Rev. E. P. Ingersoll . . 
Rev. Harvey Jones . . 
Rev. Israel Mattison 
Rev. Daniel K. Miller . 
Rev. Horatio N. Norton 
Rev. J. H. Payne . . . 
Rev. David Todd . . . 
Rev. E. E. Wells . . . 
Rev. W. B. Williams . . 



1853 
1853 
1853 
1853 
r8 5 3 
1853 
1853 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 
1854 



Rev. M. N. Adams . . 
Rev. Charles E. Bailey 
Rev. George Candee 
Rev. J. S. Davis . 
Rev. A. J. Drake . . 
Rev. Aimer Harper 
Rev. W. A. Nichols 
Rev. G. W. Stinson 
Rev. 0. W. White . 
Rev. A. A. Whitmore 
Rev. L. W. Brintnall 
Rev. R. Burgess . 
Rev. C. S. Cady . 
Rev. D. L. Eaton 
Rev. J. P. Hills . 
Rev. T. W. Jones 
Rev. L. B. Lane . 
Rev. J. W. White 
Rev. A. B. Frazier 
Rev. David Williams 

-11— 



1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1855 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 
1856 



Rev. C. C. Breed 1856 

Rev. John Copeland 1857 

Rev. W. E. Lincoln 1856 

Rev. O. B. Waters 1856 

Rev. H. W. Cobb 1858 

Rev. J. A. R. Rogers 1857 

Rev. J. T. Cook 1857 

Rev. George Juchan 1858 

Rev. Samuel Porter J 859 

Rev. J. Silsby 1858 

Miss Z. P. Weed 1859 

Rev. C. H. Eaton 1858 

Rev. L. B. Fifield i860 

Rev. C. C. Foote i860 

Rev. L. H. Jones i860 

Rev. C. H. Pierce i860 

Rev. W. B. Dada i860 

Rev. Eben Tucker i860 

Rev. W. A. Westervelt . . . .i860 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



028 356 688 



